The conventional double bearing fishing reel is provided at the front side, in the direction for drawing the line out of the spool, with the fishing line guide mechanism so as to axially guiding the spool the line to be wound thereon, thereby uniformly winding up the line throughout the whole axial length of the spool.
Such a fishing line guide mechanism, as disclosed in the Japanese Utility Model Publication Gazette No. Sho 57-22,541, is so constructed that between a pair of side frames rotatably supporting the spool, a traverse shaft having transverse grooves at the outer periphery is rotatably supported axially of the spool so as to associate the traverse shaft with a drive mechanism for the spool, a fishing line guide is slidably supported around the traverse shaft through a tubular shaft, between the side frames is mounted a guide rod with a stripe guide portion for regulating rotation of the fishing line guide, the fishing line guide is provided with a fishing line guide portion and a lock member engageable with the stripe guide portion so as to restrain the rotation of fishing line guide, and an engaging member having an engaging portion engageable with the traverse grooves at the tranverse shaft is held to the fishing line guide, so that the traverse shaft rotates to move the fishing line guide in reciprocation through the engaging member engageable with the traverse grooves at the traverse shaft, thereby guiding to the spool the fishing line to be wound up onto the spool.
The engaging member in the aforesaid fishing reel, as used in the prior art, is separate from the fishing line guide and detachably mounted to a holding portion at the fishing line guide through a cap, and cannot but project largely outwardly from the fishing line guide formed in the size required to a minimum.
The engaging member and cap having hitherto projected downwardly from the fishing line guide not to be viewed from the exterior. In such case, the cap, when the reel is mounted on a fishing rod, must not interfere therewith, and the traverse shaft must be disposed apart from the mounting portion to the fishing rod. Therefore, the side frames are larger in the size to that extent, thereby creating the problem in that an angler has a hard time gripping the side frame together with the fishing rod to fish.
Since the engaging member and cap project downwardly from the fishing line guide, when the angler grips the side frame together with the fishing rod for fishing, the cap may touch the finger of his hand gripping the side frame following the reciprocation of the fishing line guide, thus making it harder to grip the reel body.